Animacy, definiteness, and case in Cappadocian and other Asia Minor Greek dialects

Abstract

This article discusses the relation between animacy, definiteness, and case in Cappadocian and several other Asia Minor Greek dialects. Animacy plays a decisive role in the assignment of Greek and Turkish nouns to the various Cappadocian noun classes. The de­vel­opment of morphological definiteness is due to Turkish interference. Both features are important for the phenomenon of differential object marking which may be considered one of the most dis­tinctive features of Cappadocian among the Greek dialects.